Booked Out: Online: Writing Short Stories with Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

This introductory course will give you guidelines on how to shape your raw material into a story. So, what will you actually do? You will read some great short stories by established writers,selected by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne.

Theseshort stories will beavailable online, or sent to you by email. In class, you will be showntechniques for putting together short stories of various kinds – they are not all the same, you know! You’ll look at the modernist epiphany type short story (think, Joyce, John McGahern, Claire Keegan) a twist in the tale short story (think O Henry) and an experimental short story (e.g. Donald Barthelme, June Caldwell).

You will write your own examples of each kind, or whichever kind you want to write - most people will want to write an epiphany type story, or perhaps an experimental kind. Twist in the Tail is a little bit outdated, and also rather hard!

Your own stories will be workshopped in class, and you will receive feedback from Éilís.

Dr Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is an experienced teacher of Creative Writing. She has taught extensively in UCD, Trinity, and the Irish Writers Centre. The author of many books in a variety of genres, she has won many literary awards, and published seven collections of short stories. Her eighth collection, Little Red, will be published by Blackstaff Press in the autumn.